I started compiling this one in my head when the sun was shining and it was hot enough to sit in the garden at night until it went dark without the need for a coat or sweatshirt. Since I started actually putting it together the sun has vanished and the temperature has halved but I’ve ploughed on anyway. It’s a ten song mix with sunshine and balmy nights in mind from the political/ absurdist post- punk/ dub of Meatraffle, the finger picked acoustic guitar and Mellotron magic of Steve Cobby, some chuggy Scandi- disco/house, 80s heroes The Woodentops, a blissed out re- edit of Brian Eno, Andrew Weatherall spinning Toy into a chilled krautrock groove, some Belgian New Beat from 1989 and Grace Jones backed by Sly and Robbie.

esterday- early 80s punk from Los Angeles. Today- trance house from San Francisco in 1993. The Delusions of Grandeur album, a double vinyl compilation, came out in ’93. It pulled together releases from Rabbit In The Moon, Hawke, The Drum Club and God Within, all out on the Hardkiss label. Hardkiss were pioneers of US dance music, the brainchild of Scott, Robbie and Gavin Hardkiss. This track by Hawke (Gavin’s pseudonym) is a peak on an album that has plenty of peaks, a thumping, rolling, full on sound that comes in waves and doesn’t let go. Big, tribal drums. Percussion at the top end. Throbbing bassline. Trippy, trancey acid sounds. Big breakdowns and re- entries. A saxophone all bent out of shape. Perfect for Friday nights and losing yourself in.

Punk, in it’s 1976- 1980 form, was expressing some very universal attitudes through the lyrics, the sound and the presentation- boredom, dissatisfaction, rejection of authority, two fingers to the world. But the different scenes and places it took hold seem very local. Sex Pistols and their entourage were London. Buzzcocks could only be Manchester. The CBGB punks could only have come from a particular part of New York (wherever they all migrated from originally). The world was less globalised and less connected. Word of mouth spread more slowly. Local scenes had their own character based on the views and outlook of the participants. The punk scene as it developed in California and specifically in Los Angeles looks so much the product of late 70s LA that the bands could only have been spawned by that city at that time. According to those who were there and accounts of it, the new LA punk scene was suburban and from the sprawl, negative, against everything, especially the ‘older’ bands from the Hollywood part of town, who were more glam, more fashion conscious. These southern Californian suburban punk bands became faster, narrower, more hardcore. The animosity between the two punk camps and then the violent actions of the LAPD made California punk a genuinely dangerous scene to be a part of.

X formed in 1977, founded by singer- bassist John Doe and guitarist Billy Zoom. Doe’s girlfriend Exene Cervenka joined on vocals and drummer D.J. Bonebrake arrived (who also played with Germs). X would go on to outlive the early LA punk scene and make records through the 1980s with re- unions in the 90s and 2000s. X could play loud and fast and their debut and it’s follow up are full of loud, fast, short songs. What sets them apart from the hardcore bands is the country and rockabilly tinges to their music- you can feel it in Bonebrake’s motorised drumming, Zoom’s guitars and Doe’s voice. Exene added urgency and a wail, her poetry and lyrics stand out, and the off kilter twin vocals give them another layer. The presence of producer Ray Manzarek and his Doors organ sound on their albums adds an unexpected swampy murk to their electric LA punk. Mostly though they just sound alive.

I’m a little late with this but thought it was worth paying tribute to a star of African music, Mory Kante, a singer and musician who had a genuine late 80s/ early 90s crossover hit. Mory’s death was on 22nd May, caused by underlying health issues which were complicated by being unable to travel to France for treatment due to Covid- 19 restrictions. Mory was born and raised in Guinea, West Africa, brought up in the Mandinka griot tradition (a griot is a hereditary role, a storyteller, musician, historian, poet). His song Yé Ké Yé Ké became a huge hit, the first African single to sell a million copies, and was a top end of the charts record in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. The album Akwaba Beach, his third, sold in large numbers as a result of the single. Yé Ké Yé Ké was also a major club song, being in tune with the expansive, open Balearic sounds of the late 80s and was remixed several times. The chanted vocal and pounding rhythms caused mayhem in clubs, an uplifting and intense experience when surrounded by like minded souls, dry ice and strobes.

This version came out in 1987, remixed by Martyn Young of Colourbox and MARRS (and engineered by Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins), the bassline and acid sounds perfectly married to the Mandinka vocals and West African rhythms.

Sometimes you need a healthy does of bile and anger in your music and your art. The world is a fucked up, unpleasant place at the moment, not least the coverage of what is happening in the USA with the protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. The racism that blights the history of the USA never seems too far from the surface, a reminder that for all our pretence of 21st century modernity and sophistication attitudes formed over a few hundred years have very deep roots. You never have to dig very far to find racists and supremacists on social media. The absence of moral leadership at the top of US politics is obvious. Worse, the president encourages further, state sponsored violence by quoting racists in his Tweets. There is footage of policemen making white supremacist hand symbols to protesters. The president hides in the White House, issuing demands to State Governors to ‘dominate’ the protesters. In the past, even at moments of crisis- 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King or the Rodney King beating by the LA police- there was a sense that the President should act for the good of all Americans, provide some kind of re-assurance, attempt to unite. Trump does none of this. He separates, he divides, he incites, he fuels hatred. He should be removed.

Escaping through music that takes us away from this is the answer sometimes but it’s also essential to listen to music that reflects the other side of human nature, society, governments and the way that we have chosen to organise ourselves. Beasley Street was written by John Cooper Clarke in response to the poverty of 1970s Salford and Margaret Thatcher’s government and social polices but it’s themes and imagery are universal. Released on his 1980 album Snap, Crackle And Bop and produced by Martin Hannett, it’s a poem/ song with enough lines to ensure John immortality, not least ‘Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies/In a box on Beasley Street’. A contemporary equivalent could be Matt Hancock laughing his way through an interview where he was confronted with a UK death toll of 38, 000 people.

Another Monday, another Weatherall remix. This one came out in 1995, a Sabres of Paradise remix of Fun>Da>Mental. At seven and a half minutes long it’s in no rush to get anywhere very quickly and has some very dusty and lazy sounds floating on top of the stoned groove. In fact, the title Mother In India (Sabres At Dusk Mix) is a pretty accurate description of what it sounds like.

This remix was one of the last Sabres of Paradise ones and I’m sure I read somewhere recently that it was the first tie that Andrew and Keith Tenniswood really worked together one to one so in some ways the Two Lone Swordsmen were born here. In 1995 the Sabres studio was above a dry cleaners in Hounslow, on the Flightpath Estate and I can hear some of the sound of the first Two Lone Swordsmen album, 1996’s The 5th Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate), in these two remixes.

To come bang up to date the fifth monthly Woodleigh Research Facility three track ep came out on Friday, a set of songs called Karra Mesh. Sonically and thematically the title track fits in very well with the two Fun>Da>Mental remixes above, the sounds he was exploring two and a half decades ago still circling.

From 1977, a piece of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry reggae so hot it could burn the vinyl it was pressed onto. Soul Fire clocks in slowly and then things fall into some kind of groove. A grunt, a hiss of steam, an organ groove and Lee’s vocals, a rasping, edge of your seat kind of singing ‘soul fiyah/ an’ we ain’t got no water’. There’s some ‘la la la la la’. The horns come in low. This is so loose sounding but so on it and precise and the mix is superb, achieved using just a four track recording desk, some rum and collie weed (as SRC said a few weeks ago), the needles close to the red and the myriad of background noises that make something beautiful and righteous out of what could be chaos.

It’s difficult to know where we are with isolation any more. Many people seem to be acting like it’s all over, parks are full of groups of people and social distancing is a thing of last month. The daily death toll doesn’t seem to be diminishing that much and in the north west we currently have the highest regional infection and death rate in the country. As the government brings about the end of lockdown in favour of the economy and to distract from the horrors of their mismanagement of the entire period, some people I’m sure will stay in and stay distanced. In our household we are shielding so our lives will carry on as before for the moment. God only knows where we go from here.

Isolation Mix 9 came partly from a comment I made at The Flightpath Estate, an Andrew Weatherall Facebook group where I promised a Weatherdub mix, and partly from Isolation Mix 6 three weeks ago, an hour of dub that had several of Lord Sabre’s fingerprints on it. There’s some crossover between that mix and this one but I chose the other Steve Mason remix and dropped the Sabres Of Paradise dub of Regret by New Order just for variety’s sake. This mix, an hour and a quarter of dub business from Andrew Weatherall as a solo artist, aided and abetted by Nina Walsh, as a remixer, as a Sabre Of Paradise and as an Asphodell, spans thirty years taking in songs from 1990 and 2020. There’s loads more that could have gone in but I thought I’d keep it compact.

Back in the mid 2010s there was a long running series here on a Friday evening, a series of rockabilly posts that ended up a) reaching number 165 and b) draining me of enthusiasm for rockabilly. In the end it felt like a chore and that’s a sure sign to kill off a blog series. Plus there’s only so much you can say about rockabilly- a twangy guitar or ferocious leadline, slapback bass, railroad rhythms and a man or a woman usually singing about another woman or man. Tonight is a brief reprise inspired by finding my copy of Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 film Mystery Train and watching it last Friday night (or maybe it was Saturday, difficult to tell). Either way it was the first time I’ve seen the film for many years.

Mystery Train is three short stories that interconnect on one night in a Memphis flophouse hotel. It unfolds pretty slowly, at a pace today’s films wouldn’t, and in the end nothing much really happens. The first story, Far From Yokohama, has a young Japanese couple, Mitsuko and Jun, making a pilgrimage to the American south to see Gracelands and Sun Studios. She, MItsuko, is obsessed with Elvis, he, Jun, with Carl Perkins. The second story is about Luisa, a young widow, stuck in Memphis overnight while trying to fly her recently deceased husband back to Rome for the funeral. She ends up sharing a room with Dee Dee, who has just split up with her English boyfriend. In the room at night Luisa sees the ghost of Elvis. The third story centres around Johnny, the English boyfriend (played by Joe Strummer) who has lost his girl and his job, is drunk and out of control. Dee Dee’s brother (a young Steve Buscemi) is called to rescue Johnny and they spend the night in the hotel too before the film’s finale the following morning where there is a gunshot and the participants from all three stories move on. Each hotel room in the film has no TV, something each guest remarks on, but each room does a portrait of Elvis looking down on the guests. Mitsuko is keeping a scrapbook as she travels through the US, a record of Elvis and the people he has influenced, from Madonna to the Statue Of Liberty.

As well as Strummer (in his first acting role and thrown a line by Jarmusch who wrote the part for Strummer at a time when he was adrift and depressed) and Buscemi the film stars Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as the hotel’s night clerk. Buscemi is Buscemi, Hawkins is droll and subtle. Strummer overdoes it a bit, clearly the non- actor in the film. Thirty one years on the real stars are Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase, the young Japanese couple, smoking their way through the train, the railway station, the hotel and back again. The chemistry between them and their understated cool, a pair of eighteen year olds in 50s clothing entranced by the music of the rockabilly pioneers, is central to the film.

The song Mystery Train was written and recorded by Junior Parker in 1953, a Memphis blues before it became a rockabilly song. Elvis’ version from 1955 is a crucial, definitive song in the history of 20th century music, in American culture and in Elvis’ own story. It made him a nationally known figure. Producer Sam Phillips, guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black and Elvis created something that is one of building blocks of popular music, pure magic from start to finish, from the fade in and the moment when Elvis comes in with the line ‘train arrived sixteen coaches long’ to the fade out, and his girl gone on the train into the night.

This came out at the start of last week and despite all the time we supposedly have on our hands at the moment I’ve only just got around to listening to it this week. It’s a sixteen song compilation from Viscera called Galactic Broadcasting 001 filled with the kind of line up of names that would have me expecting to find a new one from Andrew Weatherall in there somewhere- Scott Fraser, Hardway Bros, JD Twitch and Ess O Ess are all present and are all familiar names to this blog as well as Nightwave, Kincaid and others. The opening track is Correction Dub by Formerlover, a new project from Sofia Hedblom and her husband Justin Robertson, and is dark dub disco with a detached spoken vocal from Sofia about desire and punishment.

Scott Fraser’s Mercury (Celestial Mix) has a jackhammer beat and shimmering synths via Detroit. System Overload from Hardway Bros is eight minutes of tension, ricocheting sounds and chug and a monstrous buzzing bassline. JD Twitch’s Ballachulish Moon is swooping, bouncing science fiction techno. The compilation, pulled together quickly, costs ten pounds of your hard earned cash but any profits are going to charities supporting NHS workers so you can do some good while enjoying the cosmic dance. It’s at Bandcamp.